Running from the Past
by YerSuperWhoLockedHarry
Summary: A young (adult) girl runs away from home, but she is not prepared for what she encounters on her first day out. Sorry for the bad summary, I'm not very good at them
1. Chapter 1: Running away

I ran to the nearest Type 40 time and space machine. I didn't have much time, and from what little I knew about time and space machines on this planet, the only type that I knew had what I was looking for was a Type 40. I didn't need the machine itself, I needed the device within it that could make me human. I have a traded vortex manipulator that I had been saving up for quite some time on my wrist. I knew I only had at most 20 minutes before they found me, so I couldn't waste time creating a backstory. I just had to erase my memory and hope for the best. I set the machine to human and strapped myself in with my coordinates already set on the manipulator.

I flipped it on and immediately began writing in pain, for it was the worst thing I'd ever felt, and I'd felt a lot of pain in my short 20 years of childhood. If you could even call it that. As the process was coming to an end, 7 Time Lords rushed into the time and space machine. I couldn't let them get to me again, so I pushed through the pain and possible side effects and started up the vortex manipulator. The last thing I saw was the Time Lords rushing at me.

I've been living with these people who call themselves my parents for 3 years, just waiting until I was old enough to move out. In public, they act like the perfect parents, but when no one's around, they're horrible! They force me to do performances for private crowds so they can earn money. I never see a cent of it, and their excuse is that they took in the stupid child from the side of the road who had no memory at all. I personally believe they're just full of crap. They heard me singing in the shower one morning, right at the beginning of the time they took me in, and it all went down hill from there. I haven't had a normal day since then. They won't even let me go to school! But, I'm 18 now, and I'm finally leaving them behind. I had packed all my things, even the odd pocket watch that I've had ever since they found me. It's the one thing they haven't taken from me. I grabbed my bag and crept out of the house for the last time.

As I made my way down the street away from that cursed place, I heard a strange noise. A familiar noise that I somehow knew was wrong. Like it shouldn't exist, yet it did. I followed the noise, but it soon faded. I kept going in the direction I thought I had heard it from, but it led to a dead end, the only thing around was an old fashioned blue British police box. I felt an odd pull towards this box, so, holding the pocket watch close, as a sort of comfort, I pulled open the door to the box and stared into the box in awe. It was larger on the inside, but it somehow felt right and wrong at the same time.

I heard an approaching voice with a British accent call out, "Come along, Martha! Plenty of exciting sights to see out there, just a bunch of old rubbish in here."

A London accent responded, "Calm down, Doctor! I'm coming."

Whoever this Doctor and Martha were, they sounded interesting, but they also sounded like they were getting closer. I walked in, close to the odd control center in the middle of the large room in the small box. As I was walking around the console in awe, I subconsciously placed the watch down on the controls. Sadly, I placed it on some buttons that made a large noise. In my startled haste to hide, I left the watch were it was.  
>A rather handsome man, who sadly seemed to be older than me by at least 10 years, wearing a pinstripe suit and converse along with a beautiful black woman, Martha, I'm assuming, ran into the main room which I was in. The handsome man with brown spiky hair looked around, worried, trying to find the source of the noise.<p>

"Doctor, what was that?" Martha asked the medical man.

"I'm not sure, it sounded like the TARDIS malfunctioning."

TARDIS, that sounded like the wrong name for this thing. The Doctor circles around the console towards my watch, and I begin to worry about it. What might he do with it? It's the only thing I have connecting me to my life before I forgot everything. He picks it up and looks at it sadly, almost as if remembering something very sad.

I began to worry very greatly about my watch, and I'm not entirely sure why. It's only a watch after all, right?

I meekly came out of my hiding spot, "Please, sir. Please don't damage that. It's the only thing I have left from my past. I don't even have my memories of it." I was pleading by now. I don't even know if it was significant in my past, but here I am, pleading for it as if it were my life. How pathetic am I?

The man looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and hope in his eyes, "Well, that all depends," he grins in a friendly way.

I'm intrigued by this man by now, "On what?"

"What's your name?"

I raised my eyebrow with a curious look on my face. Surely he can't be serious. But he does seem to be, so I answer, "They call me Rachel." I mumble, "When they're being nice, that is."

He frowns slightly, "What do they call you otherwise?"

I shake my head and fake a smile, "Let's not think about that, I'm not with them anymore, so no use thinking about it."

He keeps a pensive face, "Why did you say that's what they call you? Is that not your name?"

I huff out a laugh, "It may as well be, but I don't know for sure, and it feels wrong."

He nods, "I know the feeling. Hey, just asking out of curiosity, but have you ever opened this?" he asks, gesturing to the pocket watch.

I frown, thinking back. "I'm sure I have at some point. It's been 3 years since I lost my memory. I'm sure I have." I keep trying to think back, but I can't seem to think of any moment that I opened it. I just never wanted to, I guess.

He walks over to me and hands it to me, "Here, give it a go."

I take it and turn it over in my hands, a sense of foreboding filling me, as if something big is about to happen. I run my fingers over the engraving and open the clasp. Instantly, a gold glow begins to escape the watch and surround me. It scares me at the same time that it calms me. The gold glow suddenly enters me, filling my soul and giving me back my memories and identity. The horrible things I went through back on my home planet as well as on this one crash in on me. It was all for my amazing ability to sing that seemed to hypnotize people. All the pain crashes in on me again and it seems as if the world is pressing in on me too. I scream in pain as a gold glow of a different type begins to expel itself from my body. It is something that, although I have never experienced myself, I am not unfamiliar with.

It is something that when I was a young Gallifreyan, I thought I wouldn't experience until a good ripe age of at very earliest 90. But sadly, I am forced to regenerate at the tender age of 23.

I almost went limp from the exhaustion of regenerating, but I managed to catch myself on the railing near me. I noticed that my clothes were a bit tight on me, I must be a bit taller than I used to be.

"Well then, that is quite the change, going from thinking I'm human to regenerating for the first time. Quite exciting, don't you think? Tell me, is it normal to be light headed?" I raise a pointed finger and am about to ask something else when I black out.

A/N: Plaese be kind, this is my first posted Doctor Who story. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading


	2. Chapter 2: We get some Answers

(3rd Person POV)

The Doctor and Martha stare shocked at the odd girl passed out in front of them for a second before the Doctor bursts into action. He dashes to her and quickly checks her pulse. He sighs in relief when he feels the beats of two strong hearts.

Martha approaches warily, yet concerned, "Doctor, who is she? What just happened?"

"I'm not sure entirely who she is, she hasn't had a chance yet to tell us, but she is definitely from Gallifrey." he replies as he gently picks up the young lady.

Martha frowns slightly, confused, "Your home planet? But I thought you said all of your people were gone, dead."

"That's what I thought too, but maybe she left before the war." He begins to carry her further into the TARDIS, closer to an empty bedroom.

Martha looks down at the discarded pocket watch and bends down to pick it up. The watch seems old and scratched, almost as if someone tried to take good care of it but couldn't manage it. Martha takes the watch with her as she follows the Doctor into the new bedroom that had appeared on the TARDIS. "Doctor, you never explained what just happened. Surely that isn't normal! I mean she used to have black hair, and now it's strawberry blonde! And she's at least 2 inches taller than she was before."

The Doctor looked up at Martha from beside the young Gallifreyan where he was continueing to make sure she was ok after her first regeneration. "It's a sort of defence mechanism for Time Lords, when close to death, we completely remake ourselves. New cells, new face, new body, even a new personality, but we keep our memories. One body dies, we make another. Although, it isn't normal for her to regenerate at this time. She didn't seem to be dying, so here's the question: why did she regenerate?"

"I dunno, why?" Martha asked, going along with whatever he was babbling on about.

"I dunno, I'd say it was from getting her memories back, but my people have done what she did before now, and there are no stories about forced regeneration. However, she did seem a bit desperate to keep that watch with her, didn't seem like she even knew why. My guess is that she ran away, and the memory of whatever it was, was too much for her to take in all at once. She also might have been injured before she became human. It can hide the damage for a bit. But I'm not sure, until she wakes up, this is all speculation."

They hear a small groan from the girl, and they turn their attention back to her.

"Will she be aright, Doctor?" Martha was not only concerned about the girl, but also about the Doctor. He might have just gotten someone back from his planet, one of his own people. She could see the hope in his eyes and didn't know what she'd do if that hope left. She knew he would be devastated if the girl didn't wake up.

The Doctor looks back up at her with a smile, "I'm sure she'll be fine. The regeneration seems to have gone well, so no reason for her not to be okay." He seemed to be trying to convince himself of that fact, because he seemed worried as well. "Why don't you go make some tea? That always seems to help us recover from regeneration."

Martha nods silently, not sure what to say in response and goes to make the tea.

(Original POV)

I wake up with a groan, at first not remembering my time as a human and panicking, thinking that I had been captured, but then I realized I was on a bed. If they had caught me, they wouldn't have put me in a bed. They would have chained me up in a room. Then my time as a human came rushing back to me, and I cringed. My life on earth wasn't much different from my life on Gallifrey, but there was one difference that stood out to me. On earth, I thought the people had loved me, I had hope. And that's what made it worse than on Gallifrey. They didn't love me, they loved my singing and what I could do with it.

I tried to pull myself out of my dark thoughts of the past and focused on waking up. I could smell tea. Oh, it smelled delightful, and I don't remember liking tea all that much. Maybe that's new? I feel the warm delicious liquid go down my throat and I swallow. Oh yes, the taste for tea is definitely new. I like that, the newness. Maybe no one back home will recognize me.

I open my eyes slowly and look around. The man and woman from before, Doctor and Martha, I think it was, are looking at me curiously. I frown, "Have i got something on my face?"

The Doctor cracks a grin, "Not at all, just waiting for you to wake up."

I grin and sit up, "Well, no more need to wait. So, who exacltly are you both? I believe I know your names, but a name is merely a name. It holds little explanation."

The Doctor spoke with a smirk, "I am the Doctor, Time Lord of Gallifrey, and this is Martha Jones, human of earth."

My eyes widen when I hear he is a Time Lord, and I feel myself go pale. I bow my head, hoping against hope that he is not one of those who kept me prisoner for 10 years of my life.

The Doctor frowns at my reaction, "Who are you then?"

I gulp down my fear and hesitation and reply, "On Gallifrey, I was known as the Singer."

The Doctor frowns deeply, "I am sorry, I am so sorry."

Martha frowns in confusion, "I'm sorry, but what did I miss?"

The Doctor sighs, "On Gallifrey, there were always rumors of a young girl that had been taken out of the Acadamy because her amazing talents were more useful elsewhere.  
>More useful for certain people's personal agendas, that is. A young girl who could control things with her amazing voice. She was called the Singer in the stories, and aparently in reality as well."<p>

With my head bowed, I had tears running down my face, just remembering what I went through in a place I used to call home. Martha gasped in shock and surprise.

"I'm sorry that happened to you, it must have been horrible." Martha said with pity in her voice.

I nod, "It was. That's why I ran away. Got shot for my efforts though."

The Doctor nods, "Well, you have no need to fear, you won't ever have to go back."

I smile at him gratefully, "Thank you. Thank you so much!" I surprise myself and him and practically attack him in a hug. I didn't used to be a hugger, I guess that's new too.


End file.
